n.s.a. is ripping a page from online advertisers to bolster its own surveillance capabilities meanwhile hundreds of prize winning authors are adding their voices to the growing concern over n.s.a. surveillance that and much more just ahead and on capitol hill a hearing was held on past and future u.s. afghanistan relations so does this mean u.s. troops could remain in afghanistan beyond the planned two thousand and fourteen pullout the latest on that hearing coming up and the nation's capital is marked with a series of local police scandals multiple officers have been investigated for corrupt activities with one of them committing suicide more on the police corruption in d.c. later in the show. it's wednesday december eleventh eight pm in washington d.c. i'm sam sachs and you're watching r.t. now today on capitol hill the chief of the n.s.a. general keith alexander fielded questions from lawmakers on the senate judiciary committee the focus of the hearing was continued oversight of u.s. gove

against government spying in the end of the n.s.a. to vent to kind of change their tune and reorient themselves toward corporate partners well you know in a lot of those cases some of the same officials the elected officials we're talking about tend to be free market. and so they might for instance find themselves comforted by the idea that the market will select out advertisers who are very abusive toward their users privacy i don't think that's necessarily a good argument in this case because we've seen for instance that there are incentives in the markets don't always work for well there are incentives for online advertisers to abuse privacy will those particular members of congress see the concern and not to take an iconoclast position with respect to their own free market adherence that's an open question i really don't know the answer there but i will say that as long as the n.s.a. is hacking the online internet companies and the cookies aren't the only example of all my infrastructure that the n.s.a. has tapped into the data ce

into the n.s.a. spying programs these are hearings into the assault on democracy in america. i think it is going to be sure going with this problem too for a while here stephen the issue that was brought up today at the hearing was about metadata and we heard general keith alexander again defend method as not being such a big deal. of their intended method that is still a really big deal just like it is here isn't that right. oh absolutely i mean we joined with the civil liberties association recently in launching their lawsuit against the government which is basically saying that collecting our method data and that's our sensitive private information to be clear that's what it is that collecting that information on law abiding canadians is unconstitutional so absolutely people are concerned up here and the government going to need to answer on that and listen you know metadata tells you can tell authorities where you are where you're going who your friends with all kinds of sensitive information about your relationships so i think it's absolutely crucial that there be checks

spy -- [laughter] -- you get to keep your n.s.a. spy so that is something. [ laughter ] but of course the government -- >> his no idea we could keep our same spy. that is shock and delightful. [laughter] but of course the government couldn't get away with doing things that they swore they weren't doing because of strictness of the oversight of the nothing they weren't doing. >> this program by the way is fully overseen not just by congress but by the fisa court. it's been carried out consistent with the constitution and rule of law. >> jon: see? it turns out it wasn't so much rule of law consistent as rule of law add -- adjacent. the n.s.a. has been routinely breaking privacy rules. >> jon: rules are made to be broken. sorry, wait that is no precious moments figures. those are knead be broken. rules are made to be followed. even though they said repeatedly these programs are only used to catch bad guys. >> reports surfacing that some employees are tracking their love interests. >> using the enormous power of the government to eavesd

it appears no one is immune from the n.s.a. spying tentacles the latest n.s.a. leak revealed to us kept watch on a close ally an well known international charities details on these latest revelations that. u.s. lawmakers are demanding the release of a secret cia report detailing torture of detainees after september eleventh this as a british report shows their own intelligence agencies turned a blind eye to some controversial u.s. practices will have information on that coming up and more sanctions on iran that's what a group of senators are calling for despite repeated requests by the obama administration to halt any legislation what's really behind this latest push we'll have that answer for you next. it's friday december twentieth four pm in washington d.c. i'm lynn neary david and you are watching our t.v. we begin today with a press conference where the president faced a flurry of questions about the n.s.a. after receiving nearly fifty recommendations from a white house appointed a committee to reform the n.s.a. surveillance practices president obama pledge

spy -- [laughter] -- you get to keep your n.s.a. spy so that is something. [ laughter ] but of course the government -- >> his no idea we could keep our same spy. that is shock and delightful. [laughter] but of course the government couldn't get away with doing things that they swore they weren't doing because of strictness of the oversight of the nothing they weren't doing. >> this program by the way is fully overseen not just by congress but by the fisa court. it's been carried out consistent with the

a scandal in scandinavia now sweden's revealed to be in on the spying game helping the n.s.a. snoop on the russian leadership. of the christian community. religious officials plead for action to protect syria's christians where a group of nuns is still being held by rebel forces plus. should be no doubt where the united states stands on. america weighs in on ukraine's ongoing crisis supporting the opposition is protesters give present an ultimatum i am ready to pick up any keep going and start shooting and r.t. looks at ukraine's hardline nationalist groups and their claims they are hijacking the country's pro e.u. demonstrations. and i welcome you watching r.t. international coming to you live from moscow now sweden's been helping america's n.s.a. to spy on russian leaders and provided washington with a list of high profile targets swedish state t.v. site documents leaked by whistleblower edward snowden the program which revealed the claims is called mission investigate and its chief editor told us what they found at. we have revealed that. the very close relationship between

have spied spying on the russian leadership and they are passing this information on to n.s.a. we got access to these documents thanks to edward snowden so for we have don't have any details more than the documents are mentioning. that they're talking about unique intelligence they're talking about classic intelligence and they're also mentioning cables the spokesman of f.r.a. didn't give any comments but. when axed asked about being. seen as a leading partner that's the way they spell it in these documents for a is a leading partner to n.s.a. then he says ok that's flattering he say's so that's the only comment we have received so far well the swedish foreign ministry has since commented on the allegations saying they won't affect the country's relationship with russia a correspondent in europe peter all of also looked into what else has been emerging we tried to contact both. president putin's spokes person both of them saying they don't comment on these type of matters now a separate document that was released was there was to address two n.s.a. personnel that were working w

spying revealed it adds more evidence to the claims that the n.s.a. and its spying partners have overstepped their national security mission and are engaging in mass nearly limitless surveillance around the world can i say has been not only violating the trust of its own citizens by conducting mass cracking that surveillance on innocent people but on doing that to be innocent populations of allied nations the man who is holding on to all of the edward snowden documents journalist glenn greenwald testified in front of an easy you committee this week in argue that these disclosures prove that the. have a say in partners are spying to gain economic and diplomatic advantages as well but targeting by the us in the g.h.q. it had a morass the oil giant and or the organization of american states for economic conference is where economic accords are being negotiated in latin america or spying on energy companies such as we've reported in norway and sweden and what a lot of this signing is about has nothing to do it terrorism national security that is the preta

spying on foreign nations and i.b.m.'s complacency with the program led to a loss in profits now the fund says the decline was a result of spook chinese government agencies and businesses who now fear buying equipment from american based companies however there are several logical non snowden explanations for the decline in sales as well now not just i.b.m. but cisco systems and microsoft also saw a pattern of declining sales in china recently along with the fact that the chinese economy is slowing and the government is reducing i t. purchases regardless the suit is allowed to proceed. and finally norway's government says no no to big scandinavia as richest nation has said the currency does not qualify as money however the norwegian government did rule that big is an asset upon which capital gains tax can be charged profits made from big one will fall under the wealth tax while losses can be deducted the european bank you know already issued documents last week reminding consumers about the dangers of virtual currency is

n.s.a. snowden spying drama another twist and turn presents itself this time in the form of an i.b.m. shareholder lawsuit which accuses the company of hiding reduced sales in china a result of leaked information about the n.s.a. spying program now the louisiana sheriffs pension and relief funds sued i.b.m. in new york city federal court last week who sued is based on the assumption that edward snowden leaked information about the n.s.a. spying on foreign nations and i.b.m.'s complacency with the program led to a loss in profits now the fund says the decline was a result of spook chinese government agencies and businesses who now fear buying equipment from american based companies however there are several logical non snowden explanations for the decline in sales as well now not just i.b.m. but cisco systems and microsoft also saw a pattern of declining sales in china recently along with the fact that the chinese economy is slowing and the government is reducing i t purchases regardless the s

just as the she says the n.s.a. spying has fractured trust among. the n.s.a. has spread its reach so many other countries including our ally which is completely unnecessary destroy its diplomacy disrupt economic relationships with other countries all for the purpose of gathering and storing a bunch of. innocent people all over the world who are suspected of doing absolutely nothing and i think we see. not just among the five countries some of whom have been helping the n.s.a. gather this data but we see the. world by far reaching because again and this is tentacles have been far reaching. they did today or not the international locked and loaded field lavelle welcoming those guests jumping on a hot discussion about a pardon for snowden and lavelle no surprise here not at any point lost for words over the n.s.a. spying. it's not that we should cut a deal with edward snowden we should praise him welcome him home for exposing what what i call incipient fascism is like they don't need to strike a deal at all the whole premise of the charges against said word snowd

a scandal in scandinavia now sweden's revealed to be in on the spying game helping the n.s.a. snoop on the russian leadership also. of the christian community in syria. religious officials played for action to protect syria's christians where a group of nuns is still being held by rebel forces plus. there should be no doubt where the united states stands on all of this. america weighs in on ukraine's ongoing crisis supporting the opposition as protesters give president . old some item. and r.t. look to ukraine's hardline nationalist groups and make claims that they're hijacking the country's pro a huge demonstrations. and i welcome you watching r.t. international coming to you live from moscow. now sweden's been helping america's n.s.a. to spy on russian leaders and provided washington with a list of high profile targets swedish state t.v. site documents leaked by whistleblower edward snowden let's go live now to our tease peter oliver he was got more details for sir peter what exactly is emerging here. well these latest leaked documents look into the swedish national defense

spying scandal even though we have reported here for example that i.b.m. sales were collapsing and the likes of i.b.m. so this is part of that story and i think the reason why they hadn't priced didn't was because hollywood is still export ing this myth of the american dream and the american superpower there to protect you all yes it remarkable story and i understand what you're saying there that the there was a delay in terms of pricing in the fact that boeing and american corporations are being shunned around the world because of the n.s.a. infiltration of products with spying technology that renders these products worthless as far as being competitive you don't want your products competing with somebody who isn't affected your products with their spying technology it also speaks to how broken these markets are around the world so much of the price of stocks and bonds and currencies around the world is set by fraudsters using their algorithmic trading computer trading so it took a couple of days for stock to really discount the fact the american empire i

authorities rather than the n.s.a. spying on every country resident not knowing it people actually finding out about what's going on. public transport has been a frequent target for terror attacks internationally in nine hundred ninety five people were killed in tokyo and over four thousand injured by a sarin gas attack on the subway in march two thousand and four coordinated bombings had the train system in madrid one hundred ninety one people died and over a thousand were wounded july two thousand and five saw a series of suicide attacks in london targeting the underground and buses fifty two people were killed and around seven hundred injured and of course the nine eleven tragedy also involved transport for passenger planes were hijacked by al-qaeda terrorists and flown into a number of targets including the world trade center in new york almost three thousand people died and thousands more were injured journalist and broadcaster in new york clarke things western governments actions to tackle terror are inconsistent

spying undermines freedom here's what abby martin has to say about that. after publicly opposing government surveillance last week internet search giant google has enjoyed a wave of good press before we all decide to instill our full faith and trust the benevolent an almighty google we might just want to use their search bar to google boston dynamics he said yesterday sergey brin the little company purchased boston dynamics an engineering firm with strong ties the military's defense advanced research projects agency or darpa so what is boston dynamics all about terrifying and jaw dropping robots such as big dog four legged robot that can climb hills or cheetah a robot that can run at twenty nine miles an hour and most lifelike pet man humanoid robot that can move around like a human and detect chemical leaks so what the hell is one of the biggest internet companies in the world doing purchasing these spooky cyborgs yeah i don't know if i'm ready for google to have a private army of iron man. let's take a brief look at some other global headlines for you th

companies band together gans the n.s.a. spying but manny just don't believe their call is genuine. street interesting. strategic vision. cover team of journalists trying to release wiki leaks documents about zero united states trying. yeah. maybe a local media more pro-american they encounter fear ignorance and pressure. the country blocks the way to information freedom. media stuff on our t.v. . oh welcome back you're watching r t international the military mission in afghanistan is accomplished at least that's what the u.k. prime minister told soldiers they are in a free christmas visit his cheering words come as drug trafficking in the country reaches record levels and the afghan national army surrenders key checkpoints in southern afghanistan to taliban and return for an anti-tax we spoke to an iraq war veteran who believes that cameron is trying to put a brave face on a story business. mission accomplished was used by cameron because you know politicians don't really say hey you know that wildly unpopular war that we sent you and your children to die and it's like for over a d

n.s.a. surveillance of foreign leaders this time looks like our neighbors to the north helped us spying on the heads of state during the twenty ten g. eight and g. twenty summits in canada for the expansion of international surveillance going up and orange county police officers are on trial over the death of a local homeless man for months now there's been video showing how kelly thomas was beaten and tasered by officers before his death the latest on the case later in the show. it's monday december second four pm in washington d.c. i'm megan lopez and you are watching r t well topping the news this hour a federal district court in san francisco is hearing the case today a woman who has been fighting to remove her name from the terror watch list for over eight years now it's a list that's easy to get your name on but almost impossible to get your name off of stanford university ph d. student ruhani. eager to hear what was boarding a flight home to malaysia from the san francisco internation

spying programs we've been learning more and more about the extent to which the n.s.a. over a period of years hasn't complied with the own prosy its own procedures that it said it had put into place and now there's pretty significant legislation that's working its way through congress including a pretty strong bipartisan bill so i think there's no question that something is going to have to change the white house has hasn't signaled a lot yet about which recommendations is actually going to take up it has set a bit so i think we know that some changes will have to be made the n.s.a. certainly has been advocating basically those changes be on the margins now one of the recommendations that we know won't be taken out is the on consolidation of the two of the different agencies so i want to go ahead and read a quote from white house spokeswoman caitlin hayden she told the washington post following a thorough interagency review the administration has decided that keeping the positions of n.s.a. director and cyber command commander together as one dual hatted position is the

s surveillance tactics the spy agency is also conducting a blitz of its own the n.s.a. has launched its own twitter p.r. page so far it has sent out a total of three tweets its first tweet encourage viewers to turn into that controversial sixty minutes report that media clip critics claim amounted to a p.r. job for the agency the other two tweets linked to podcasts on lawfare where our reporter interviewed the n.s.a. director of come of compliance john de long and n.s.a. general counsel d. so is the twitter account going to change the beleaguered agency's perception here to talk all things n.s.a. i'm joined now by justin wright act she is the national security and human rights director for the government accountability project and all along with that word snowden she was named one of their own policies one hundred leading global thinkers of twenty thirteen just on first of all congratulations on being named so i want to start by getting your initial reactions coming out in the wake of this report with those forty six recommendations my initial reactions are i am pleasan

spain spying but man i just don't believe they are called as janet plus. victims of an invisible enemy u.k. nuclear veterans claim compensation for their service that was recognized in many countries except their own. largest consumer of the season i see it with me in the country is the federal government to simply say it's property of the united states government. is the united states but it was probably going to realize you can't just buy. your own just throw it away there's a problem for instance belongs to the united states environmental protection agency i found this on a dump site here here and not wait. for news of these and that's what i think should be able to collect these i believe that this should be responsible for the products from cradle to grave. fatal from mexico. into mental health property will sell to murder and copper but also belongs to the washington metro area transit authority to the properties of a dentist aids patient and trademarks. welcome back you're watching r t international the military mission of ghana stan is accomplished

of the patriot act which underpins the n.s.a.'s bulk phone records collection program the report says we recommend that section two fifteen should be amended and that the government can only collect private data from companies if the particular information sought is relevant to an authorized investigation intended to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities and like a subpoena of the order is reasonable in focus scope and breath recommendation five goes on to say legislation should be enacted that terminates the storage of bulk telephony metadata by the government under section two fifteen recommendation for adds the government should not be permitted to collect and store all mass undigested nonpublic personal information about individuals to enable future queries and data mining for foreign intelligence purposes in other words no. more bulk collection at the n.s.a. and no more backdoor searches the events of the week have the biggest offenders of the n.s.a. walking back their die hard support

justice department says the n.s.a. spying has fractured trust among allies. the n.s.a. has spread its reach into so many other countries including our our way. which is completely unnecessary destroys diplomacy disrupts economic relationships with other countries all for the purpose of gathering and storing a bunch of data on in this and people all over the world who are suspected of doing absolutely nothing and i think we've seen reverberations not just among the five countries some of whom have been colu with helping the n.s.a. gather this data but we see the world by their far reaching because again and this is tentacles have been far reaching. breaking news story right now for oil tycoon. has been released from jail and we've just received footage reportedly showing him being driven away in a car from the you know colony where he had been serving his stab president putin signed pardon after receiving an amnesty plea one so russia's richest man ten years in prison for tax fraud and embezzlement. clemency because his mother was sick and of course we'll bring you more

. >> the n.s.a. spying program, which connects millions of american phone records is legal. it dismisses a lawsuit claiming that what the agency did and how they did it is unconstitution call. another federal judge placed an injunction against the program, calling it almost orwellian. >> in his ruling federal judge pauley of new york says the n.s.a.'s mass collection of phone records recognises a counter-punch. he said the 9/11 attacks night have been prevented if the phone data collection system existed then to help investigators connect the dots. they have adapted to confront a new network. the data collection program was part of the adjustment and he dismissed the lawsuit brought by the american civil liberties union after analyst edward snowden leaked details of top-secret programs on american networks every day. the aclu's lawyers argued the government's interpretation was so broad that it could justify the mass connection, financial health and library records of innocent americans without their knowledge. the acu will appeal judge william pauley's rulings: >> now the d

intelligence he agrees the extent of n.s.a. spying is reasonable. it's not a strong argument compared to the right of people to have privacy in their papers from unwarranted searches so what's what's basically happening the argument the government's making is that the method data that they're collecting which is all the information about the phone calls who called who at what time how long the call was all that information they think that's fair game that they should be able to grab as much of that as possible most people who who look at this you know from a situation like a normal person would say it's just like wiretapping the reality is this they don't need to do a dragnet on everybody if they really care about terrorists i mean most people would say yeah if there's a suspicion or a reason for people to to be surveilled like this go to a judge get a warrant will cooperate everybody i know in this business would cooperate with a legal warrant to search but when you go on a fishing expedition to catch every fish in the ocean and then throw ninety n

surveillance tactics the spy agency is also conducting a blitz of its own the n.s.a. has launched its own twitter p.r. page so far it has sent out a total of three tweets its first tweet encourage viewers to tune in to that controversial sixty minutes report that media critics claim amounted to a p.r. job for the agency the other two tweets linked to podcasts on lawfare were reporter interview the n.s.a. director of compliance johns long and n.s.a. general counsel roger. earlier i spoke with just one right at the national security and human rights director of the government accountability project i first asked her to give me her initial reactions to the forty six recommendations in the report . my initial reactions are i am pleasantly surprised by the forty six recommendations they are a lot more aggressive than i thought they would be coming from a president and so in the white house committee i also feel most importantly this has been the case edward snowden who has been derived by the government by very loudly and vociferously as some sort of traitor or committing

spy scandal. anti-government protesters in kiev ukraine occupy independence square after days of calm. pro-government protesters came to try to remove the barr kates. it caused tensions to escalate. >> the u.n. defense department wanted to build a network that could survive a nuclear explosion. they wound up with the internet. the development division is holding a robotic competition that could change the world. developers have been asked to build a robot that could perform tasks in a manmade disaster zone. these six received $3 million because they have the best chance of winning. let's have a look. this is valcry, the latest from n.a.s.a. a long-line of space-bearing robots. japan has the front runner, by a company just brought by google, that has new motors to make it faster and stronger. jacob ward has for. >> this weekend robots are coming to save you or at least they are going to try. they are driving vehicles, climbing ladders and cutting through walls as part of a robot olympics held by a

is spying programs. staying here now to a story about the revolving door in news media you may remember john miller the c.b.s. correspondent who brought us the sixty minutes n.s.a. report earlier this month the report was heavily criticized as a puff piece about a single critic of the n.s.a. spy programs was interviewed for it and c.b.s. which was alleged to have traded softball questions for access is also very clear early on that john miller was not an objective reporter when it comes to covering intelligence and counterterrorism tactics. full disclosure i once worked in the office of the director of national intelligence where i saw firsthand how secretly the n.s.a. operates well less than two weeks after that report miller is going through the revolving door again in taking a top counterterrorism job this for the new york police department will be working under the new new york police department commissioner bill bratton. some of you may have had the experience of buying a pregnancy test and finding

justice department she says the n.s.a. spying as trust among. the n.s.a. has spread its reach into so many other countries including our. which is completely unnecessary destroy. their economic relationships with other countries all for the purpose of gathering and storing a bunch of. innocent people all over the world who are suspected of doing absolutely nothing and i think we. are not among the five countries some of whom have. helping the n.s.a. gather the. world. because again and their tentacles are reaching. and in just a few minutes here on our teams are national locked and loaded people of l. and his guests all jumping all over each other in a hot discussion about a politician for snowden and all the issues about the n.s.a. and his broad reaching spying nobody interest cross-talk lost for words at all. it's not that we should cut a deal with edward snowden we should praise him welcome him home for exposing what what i call incipient fascism is like they don't need to strike a deal at all the whole premise of the charges against said word snowden a

this humorous video employs people to not let the n.s.a. spy on them during this holiday season have to dot com for the full story. also their never before released information about the boston bombers show the elders are naive brother tom allin a can fast saying he heard voices in his head before the attack. in the wake of the focus human disaster germany has been shutting down nuclear reactors the country plans to completely abandon nuclear power by twenty twenty two but almost a fifth of germany's energy comes from atomic power plants so berlin aims to go green to keep the lights on but let's take a closer look at the pros and cons of green energy on like fossil fuels these sources of energy are renewable and should be environmentally friendly but wind turbines and solar panels are expensive to install and take a long time to pay off driving up household energy bills also some of the green energy sources are dependent on weather of course you can't get wind and sun every day and they only produce relatively small amounts of power compare

n.s.a. data collection program. now will the supreme court get involved? >> and a former lebanese government official with ties to the united states is killed in a mass explosion in beirut. >> hello, welcome to al jazeera america. i'm morgan radford, live from new york city. >> emergency jobless benefits, a life line for the unemployed, is set to expire on saturday. 1.3 million people who have been out of work for a month will be cut off. the average recipient will lose out on $1,000 each and every month. the benefit program was introduced in 2008 at the height of the recession. since then the payouts cost the government $20 billion. extending it for a year will cost another $19 billion. congress has not done that yet. >> more than a million unemployed will lose benefits because the unemployment program was allowed to expire before congress took its break. since 2008 the federal government has supplied benefits to unemployed workers when state benefits run out. usually after 26 weeks, as lon

now there's humorous video implores people to not let the n.s.a. spy on them during this holiday season had to call for the full story. and also they never before released information about the boston bomber showed her not brother tom confessing he heard voices in his head before the attack. now despite a fisherman is asked or japan is in no rush to give up atomic power but the ripples from the nuclear catastrophe are being felt across the pacific and germany berlin wants to exit its nuclear program by two thousand and twenty two despite atomic power producing almost a fifth of the country's anarchy are just bitter all over reports on the huge cost of the transition. disagreeing with germany's no to nuclear has become it to be topic in a country that has set itself up as the world leader renewable energy can in it for all their lives germans have been told that nuclear energy is bad but that idea has now filled up their brains so that there is no space left for any other thoughts on the race for renewable wind and solar is being financed by rising